So, I brewed up an aroma-forward blonde ale last Monday and completely forgot to post about it. The idea for this brew is not that it is particularly bitter, but that it will be particularly hop-flavored and strongly aromatic.
The Recipe:
8 lb 2-row pale malt
2 oz Cara-Pils
5 AAU (26g @ 5.4% AA) Cascade @ 60
10.7 AAU (28g @ 10.7% AA) Amarillo @ 5
14.2 AAU (28g @ 14.2% AA) Citra @ 5
Added the following hops on 31 August 2011:
5.4 AAU (28g @ 5.4% AA) Cascade
10.7 AAU (28g @ 10.7% AA) Amarillo
14.2 AAU (28g @ 14.2% AA) Citra
Whirlfloc tablet @ 15 min
Wyeast 1084 - Irish Ale
Dough-in with 10 quarts of water and mashed for an hour at 150°. Did a pretty basic batch sparge to get 26 quarts for the boil.
O.G.: 1.040
Est. IBU: 38.4
Sometime in the next few days I am going to commence dry-hopping, but I haven't figured out exactly what hops I am going to use. Probably more Amarillo and Citra, but I might throw some other stuff in there as well.
Monday, August 29, 2011
Saturday, August 20, 2011
The Trees
So, today I'm pitching some oak chips into Chernobyl Stout. After much consideration, I decided not to soak my oak in bourbon before adding them. Instead, for sanitation, I'm cooking 'em at 350° for 30 minutes in the oven. I'm using 2.5 oz of medium-toast American oak chips, and I think I'll leave 'em in there for 2-3 weeks. I may sample it after 2 weeks and then decide if I want a third.
In related news, I took a sample of Chernobyl to measure its gravity. It is currently sitting at approximately 1.038, which is high, but that means it is about 70% attenuated. This is the figure I had for Backbreaker Wee Heavy (1.101 OG) and close to the 72% I got for Pyatiletka Stout (1.086 OG). So, attenuation is right where it ought to be. The brew is quite sweet and the 11.5% ABV is masked extremely well. The flavor on this one is quite good, although it could use a hair more complexity. I'm hoping the oak will help that a bit.
My brew buddy Lance provided me with a packet of Nottingham dry yeast in case this guy did not ferment as well as expected, but I think I'm going to hold off on adding it. I am not convinced this beer would benefit at all from drying out; the sweetness is working for it.
In related news, I took a sample of Chernobyl to measure its gravity. It is currently sitting at approximately 1.038, which is high, but that means it is about 70% attenuated. This is the figure I had for Backbreaker Wee Heavy (1.101 OG) and close to the 72% I got for Pyatiletka Stout (1.086 OG). So, attenuation is right where it ought to be. The brew is quite sweet and the 11.5% ABV is masked extremely well. The flavor on this one is quite good, although it could use a hair more complexity. I'm hoping the oak will help that a bit.
My brew buddy Lance provided me with a packet of Nottingham dry yeast in case this guy did not ferment as well as expected, but I think I'm going to hold off on adding it. I am not convinced this beer would benefit at all from drying out; the sweetness is working for it.
Friday, July 29, 2011
Chernobyl Stout
Today I kegged Tyo's Fourth of JulIrish Red, White and Brew, and since that meant I had a ton of yeast ready to go I decided to brew up a massive Russian Imperial Stout. My goal is to hit the elusive 12% ABV mark on this one, which Wyeast says that 1084 can do.
The Recipe:
20 lb 2-row pale malt
2.5 lb chocolate malt
1 lb crystal 60°
12 oz Cara-Pils
12 oz roasted barley
290g light dry malt extract
225g corn sugar
22 AAU (43g @ 14.2% AA) Citra @ 60
Wyeast 1084 - Irish Ale
Mashed for an hour at 157° on a dough-in of about 30 quarts. Collected 12 quarts of first runnings and boiled that down to about 4 or 5 quarts to caramelize some of the sugars. Maintained the mash at about 150° for the two-plus hours that process took. Once that was done, continued taking runnings, sparging with a few quarts of ~170° water when necessary.
O.G.: 1.126
Est. IBU: 52.9
As I was preparing to do the main boil, I decided that perhaps the gravity could be kicked up a notch so that I can hit my goal of 12% ABV. I went ahead and added the ~10 oz of light dry malt extract that I had laying around (it was getting old and needed to be used anyway), then added a half-pound of corn sugar left over from my bottling days. This beer is going to have absolute truckloads of body anyway, so I felt like it wouldn't hurt to add a little sugar to boost the gravity and provide a little bit of counter to the eventual sweetness that it will have.
One thing I forgot about was the lower utilization of whole hops vs. pellet hops. If I had remembered that, I would have made it maybe 28 or 30 AAU of Citra rather than the 22 that I used.
Lastly, I think I am going to oak this beer once primary fermentation is done. My current thoughts are to use two or three ounces of toasted oak chips, soaked in bourbon (for sanitation purposes, naturally). Should add a little character to this massive beast, no?
The Recipe:
20 lb 2-row pale malt
2.5 lb chocolate malt
1 lb crystal 60°
12 oz Cara-Pils
12 oz roasted barley
290g light dry malt extract
225g corn sugar
22 AAU (43g @ 14.2% AA) Citra @ 60
Wyeast 1084 - Irish Ale
Mashed for an hour at 157° on a dough-in of about 30 quarts. Collected 12 quarts of first runnings and boiled that down to about 4 or 5 quarts to caramelize some of the sugars. Maintained the mash at about 150° for the two-plus hours that process took. Once that was done, continued taking runnings, sparging with a few quarts of ~170° water when necessary.
O.G.: 1.126
Est. IBU: 52.9
As I was preparing to do the main boil, I decided that perhaps the gravity could be kicked up a notch so that I can hit my goal of 12% ABV. I went ahead and added the ~10 oz of light dry malt extract that I had laying around (it was getting old and needed to be used anyway), then added a half-pound of corn sugar left over from my bottling days. This beer is going to have absolute truckloads of body anyway, so I felt like it wouldn't hurt to add a little sugar to boost the gravity and provide a little bit of counter to the eventual sweetness that it will have.
One thing I forgot about was the lower utilization of whole hops vs. pellet hops. If I had remembered that, I would have made it maybe 28 or 30 AAU of Citra rather than the 22 that I used.
Lastly, I think I am going to oak this beer once primary fermentation is done. My current thoughts are to use two or three ounces of toasted oak chips, soaked in bourbon (for sanitation purposes, naturally). Should add a little character to this massive beast, no?
Monday, July 4, 2011
Tyo's Fourth of JulIrish Red, White & Brew
Today I brewed up my first Irish Red and decided to give it a preposterous name. Brewing was completely uneventful, which is just the way I like it.
The Recipe:
10 lb 2-row pale malt
8 oz Crystal 60°
3 oz Cara-Pils
2 oz chocolate malt
5 AAU (27g @ 5.1% AA) Fuggles @ 60
2 AAU (11g @ 5.1% AA) Fuggles @ 20
Whirlfloc tablet @ 15
Wyeast 1084 - Irish Ale
Mashed for an hour at 151°, which was right about my target. Doughed in with 14.25 qts to get to 151°. Performed an 8 qt mash-out with 175° water, followed by a small (~6 qt) batch sparge, followed by fly sparging until I had the requisite 26 quarts. It was a bizarre sparge, but it yielded 75% efficiency for me. So, yay!
O.G.: 1.054
Est. IBU: 24.6
I am feeling optimistic about this brew. If all goes well, I think I am going to use the yeast cake from this batch to make another Russian Imperial Stout. Should be fun!
The Recipe:
10 lb 2-row pale malt
8 oz Crystal 60°
3 oz Cara-Pils
2 oz chocolate malt
5 AAU (27g @ 5.1% AA) Fuggles @ 60
2 AAU (11g @ 5.1% AA) Fuggles @ 20
Whirlfloc tablet @ 15
Wyeast 1084 - Irish Ale
Mashed for an hour at 151°, which was right about my target. Doughed in with 14.25 qts to get to 151°. Performed an 8 qt mash-out with 175° water, followed by a small (~6 qt) batch sparge, followed by fly sparging until I had the requisite 26 quarts. It was a bizarre sparge, but it yielded 75% efficiency for me. So, yay!
O.G.: 1.054
Est. IBU: 24.6
I am feeling optimistic about this brew. If all goes well, I think I am going to use the yeast cake from this batch to make another Russian Imperial Stout. Should be fun!
Tuesday, June 28, 2011
Big Keggin' Night
Tonight I kegged batches 44, 45 and 46. A synopsis:
44 is my Saison which attenuated rather dramatically: a final gravity of 1.000! The 3711 French Saison is evidently a beast of a yeast. 7.2% ABV, and it is quite light and smooth.
45 is my almost-imperial IPA made with truckloads of hops. Dry hopping helped this guy out, I think, even though I only used about an ounce of hops. This keg is going with me to Rush at the Gorge next weekend, so I'm trying to carb it up quick.
46 is the Vienna Hefeweizen from the week before last. 9 days is a pretty short time to ferment, but it was a relatively small beer and fermentation was over pretty much in two or three days. Tasting it now it is not too sweet nor too dry, but it, at least now, doesn't seem like my best Hefe.
44 is my Saison which attenuated rather dramatically: a final gravity of 1.000! The 3711 French Saison is evidently a beast of a yeast. 7.2% ABV, and it is quite light and smooth.
45 is my almost-imperial IPA made with truckloads of hops. Dry hopping helped this guy out, I think, even though I only used about an ounce of hops. This keg is going with me to Rush at the Gorge next weekend, so I'm trying to carb it up quick.
46 is the Vienna Hefeweizen from the week before last. 9 days is a pretty short time to ferment, but it was a relatively small beer and fermentation was over pretty much in two or three days. Tasting it now it is not too sweet nor too dry, but it, at least now, doesn't seem like my best Hefe.
Vienna Hefeweizen
The Sunday before last, I brewed up an ad-hoc Hefeweizen out of two-thirds wheat malt and the rest Vienna. I'm a bit late getting a post up about it, though.
The Recipe:
6 lb wheat malt
3 lb Vienna malt
4.5 AAU (39g @ 3.2% AA) Tettnanger @ 60
4.5 AAU (39g @ 3.2% AA) Tettnanger @ 20
4.5 AAU (39g @ 3.2% AA) Tettnanger @ 5
Wyeast 3068 - Weihenstephan Weizen
Mashed at a rather low 146° for an hour using about 12 quarts of water, a bit looser than I normally do. Once again I mashed out with about 8 quarts at about 170°, then performed a single-batch sparge at about 165°.
O.G.: 1.040
Est. IBU: 33.4
Got a rather low 68% mash efficiency this time around, so I don't know how much I like this mash-out business. It speeds up my brew day about 15 minutes, though, so it will be a hard process to give up.
This brew session I also monkeyed with my grain mill to try to get it to grind a little bit finer, but evidently I didn't actually accomplish this. I will have to get some calipers or something to allow me to measure the effective gap and actually improve upon it.
The Recipe:
6 lb wheat malt
3 lb Vienna malt
4.5 AAU (39g @ 3.2% AA) Tettnanger @ 60
4.5 AAU (39g @ 3.2% AA) Tettnanger @ 20
4.5 AAU (39g @ 3.2% AA) Tettnanger @ 5
Wyeast 3068 - Weihenstephan Weizen
Mashed at a rather low 146° for an hour using about 12 quarts of water, a bit looser than I normally do. Once again I mashed out with about 8 quarts at about 170°, then performed a single-batch sparge at about 165°.
O.G.: 1.040
Est. IBU: 33.4
Got a rather low 68% mash efficiency this time around, so I don't know how much I like this mash-out business. It speeds up my brew day about 15 minutes, though, so it will be a hard process to give up.
This brew session I also monkeyed with my grain mill to try to get it to grind a little bit finer, but evidently I didn't actually accomplish this. I will have to get some calipers or something to allow me to measure the effective gap and actually improve upon it.
Wednesday, June 15, 2011
Dry Hoppage
So I've been away from brewing for about a month and I'm jonesing to get back into it. Today I decided to dry-hop Five Seas IPA so I threw in a half-ounce each of Cascade and Columbus to see what that'll do. I'm going to Rush in July so I think I'll be taking Five Seas to that event -- should be a good time.
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